October 5-9, 2020

A note from Kirsten:

I hope you all had a great weekend.  We started decorating for Halloween and I finished the Series Stranger Things.  My poor husband, he said I would enjoy the show.  I would not say that I "enjoyed" it, yet I could not stop watching it and had to know what would happen next. There were moments when I covered my eyes with the blanket, cried, laughed, wept and sat in shock!  It was an ever-changing...just like our school year!   

We are planning for the Hybrid with the chance that it could be a 5-day return.  We need to create new classes for the return and please be on the lookout for a grade-level meeting request to collaborate about this process.  There is also a Hybrid Safety Meeting in the Quad area at 2:30 pm on Thursday, 10/8/2020.

Have a great week!

Kirsten 

Staff Meeting Friendly Reminder 

It was my intention to align the Leadership Meetings and our Staff Meetings in the same week so that you receive the most current information in a timely manner.  

Our meetings are not aligned for the month of October, that being said the meeting dates will be as follows:

October 7, 2020 - 7:45 am

October 21, 2020 - 7:45 am

We will revisit staff meeting days and times for November and as we move forward with the Hybrid or Phase IV.

Report Cards

We wanted to let you know information regarding the Trimester 1 report card.  Because many students will be changing programs and classes at the end of the trimester, we need to have all report cards sent to parents by October 30th.  We know this is earlier than past practice, as is the change of elementary conferences from November to February. 

Teachers will need to have the report cards completed by the end of the day on October 27th to give clerical time to get the reports ready to send home. 

Because this is a new process, our team will be offering time to answer questions on October 12th, 19th, 26th, from 2:30-3:15 and 3:30-4:15.  We will include the Zoom links in the Optional Monday PD document.  

PLC Report Card Prep time will be on October 19th, instead of the previously scheduled October 26th.

Information for All Grades

• If you did not assess a Domain in a Trimester, you can just leave it blank
• The ability to override a final grade is coming to Otus, but unfortunately, it is not available during Trimester 1.  Because of that, elementary and middle school have different ways they will be entering grades for this Trimester. TK and K-5 will enter one final grade for each domain assessed,  middle school will rely on the mean of scores for domains on the Summative and Learning Behavior grade scales for the Trimester.  Please see additional information below. 
• If you did not assess a domain and there is no data for a domain, and it will not show on the Report Card.  There is not a NA (Not Assessed) option in Otus.
• Here is a guide on how to mass grade a rubric assessment from the assessment itself.  This might be helpful for an assignment or domain where students received the same score (example consistently on a Work Completion assignment, Target for an ABC standard in elementary school, or participation in Science or History).
• You can enter comments for the report card.  Here is a guide from Otus or you can click here to watch this video on how to enter comments.There is not a comment code bank in Otus. 
• If a student has an IEP you can put this comment:
• Please see additional information that will be sent home separately
• If a student is receiving modification you can use this comment:
• Student is receiving modifications in this area

We are excited to announce our second virtual activity of the year! Many of you may not know but today is World Smile Day! This holiday is celebrated on the first Friday in October each year. It was created by Harvey Ball who is also the creator of the Smiley Face. He thought that we, all of us, should devote one day each year to making people smile with acts of kindness. 

•  This activity will be hosted on Flipgrid from October 2 - October 9. Don't forget to use your school chromebook to access the activity. 
• World Smile day is about doing an act of kindness to help one person smile! Click here to see the activity and respond.  
• Visit our virtual page to stay up to date on upcoming events and to check out our TJ Staff spotlight. Click here to view